In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems are becoming ubiquitous. A driver can listen to music, news, and other audio content from the IVI head unit. In addition, a driver can personalize the IVI head unit for favorite content, navigation history, or vehicle telematics, and the like. Some IVI systems include additional entertainment system for each passenger, such as on the seat back, the roof, or the like. A passenger can even watch video and play games on those systems. At the same time, vehicle controls are also highly customizable to individual driver or passengers, enabling a vehicle to store a seat position, a steering wheel position, mirror positions, radio stations, temperature settings, and the like for one or more users of the vehicle. These advancements have given rise to the development of “connected car” systems that communicate with “cloud” services and provide a high degree of vehicle customization for each occupant.
One major challenge with connected car solutions is personalization. Conventional systems either do no personalization (i.e., recognition of and automatic customization for each occupant) or require a user's explicit interaction in order to identify the user. In addition, if a vehicle has multiple displays for its IVI system, such as backseat entertainment system with multiple displays for each seat, further personalization is needed for each passenger in each seat. But, current vehicle IVI systems do not know “who sits where” automatically.
By way of example, there are smartphone services to enhance driver safety by limiting distractions, such as AT&T “Drive Mode” application. When the service detects the smartphone is in a moving car, the service puts the smartphone in a restricted mode. For example, in this mode, the user can only make emergency calls, but nothing else. However, the service cannot distinguish whether the smartphone is with the driver or the passenger. This causes inconveniences for passengers if their smartphones also run this service.
Also by way of example, without personalization, the IVI head unit may have the same settings (e.g., music channels, climate control, audio settings, saved destinations, etc.) for all drivers. This is inconvenient for family vehicles, which are often shared by both spouses and possibly children. Some vehicles store personal settings with the key, but the key is not a personal item for a particular person and usually there are only two keys. This is a particular problem for rental cars.
To enable complete personalization, some connected IVI systems ask for a PIN whenever the user enters a vehicle, thus authenticating the user and loading his personal preferences. This is inconvenient. There are other ways to authenticate the driver, such as by tapping near field communication (NFC) devices, fingerprint, and the like, but all require user interaction and effort. Bluetooth pairing may help identify a user automatically, but it requires pre-configuration for each vehicle, and cannot determine in which seat the user is located.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved methods and apparatuses for automatically personalizing vehicle controls and settings for each occupant. In particular, there is a need for an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system that automatically determines the seat location of an occupant and personalizes vehicle controls and settings according to that occupant's seat location, either at the driver seat or a particular passenger seat.